Reel People: Character, Cinema & Costume Design

Movies are about people. It is the people in the story who hold our attention and who are of endless fascination to the audience. The believability of these characters and their situation provides the framework for a movie. Unique characters and personalities can be found in any screenplay. It is the actualisation of authentic people from the written page that is the responsibility of the costume designer, the actor and the director. The primary purpose of costume design is to support the narrative by the creation of truthful characters.

Movies have a visual context that tells the story as definitively as the screenplay. The marriage of sight and sound provides a bounty of information to the audience. Production designers define the place and setting, cinematographers lights each scene creating the mood and tone for the story and costume designers fill the frame with the color, texture and silhouette of the costumes. Together, they paint each frame of film as meticulously as a canvas in service of the story and the director.

This brief talk will discuss the much-misunderstood role of costume design by the press, the film-going public, film-makers and scholars.

As the University continues to maintain and develop its profile as a global leader in arts research, a series of Professorial Platform lectures was launched in 2008.

The Platforms are an opportunity for University colleagues and associates, as well as invited members of the public, to learn more about the research undertaken in the University. The Platforms enable Professors to highlight their field of interest and the University, in turn, to recognise and commemorate their successes to date.